F1 facts: cars, cash and crashes

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has reportedly held talks with Carlos Slim, the
world's richest man, to form a bid for the F1 franchise. Here, we look at
some facts and figures from the sport.

12:10PM BST 20 Apr 2011

• Formula 1 cars have around 800bhp but only weigh 640kgs, including the driver. That means they have similar power to a Bugatti Veyron in a car that has around half the weight of a new Mini.

An F1 steering wheel costs around £20,000. The drivers have a button which gives the car a "boost" when pressed. This is called the kinetic energy recovery system (KERS).

• While aeroplanes use their wings to lift them into the air, F1 cars use theirs to create downforce. This pushes the vehicle onto the track and helps them corner faster and have more grip. It has been reported that at upwards of 150mph, a Formula 1 car will create so much downforce that it could be driven upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel.

• Before the Monaco Grand Prix, the manhole covers on this street circuit are welded down - the downforce created by an F1 car has enough suction to rip them off.

F1 helmets are subjected to an 800C flame for 45 seconds (without the heat inside the helmet exceeding 70C). Projectiles are also fired at the visor at around 300mph.

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• The front suspension of a Formula 1 car is so strong that it can withstand two tonnes of pressure. That means the carbon fibre rods that connect the wheels to the main body could easily cope with an adult bull sitting on them.

• When a driver has his foot to the floor and the engine is revving at 18,000rpm, the pistons will be travelling down the bore and back in three-thousandths of a second.

• The chassis – the car’s main structure – is incredibly strong. It is made from more than 1,000 different parts of Kevlar, carbon fibre and metal.

• The safety of modern F1 cars means drivers can withstand huge crash impacts. The biggest crash impact on record was suffered by David Purley at the British Grand Prix in 1977. That impact with a wall was estimated at 180g (G-force) – his car went from 108mph to a standstill in just 66cm. He survived and went on to race again.

Drivers are subjected to forces of up to 5g – meaning that in a very high-speed corner, their body will experience pressure five times greater than their body weight.

• Monza in Italy is renowned as the hardest track on brakes. When drivers brake for the first corner they go from 200mph down to 60mph in just over two seconds.

• Under extreme braking, some drivers have said that this force is so great that their tear ducts squirt water into their visors.

• Formula 1 brake discs are made from a special, indestructible form of carbon fibre. A set costs several thousand pounds and takes a month to make. When a driver hits the brake pedal, the discs heat up to around 1,200C – typically the temperature of molten lava.

• Even after a race has been completed, a car’s tyres will be about 120C – hot enough to cook an egg on.

When a car is driving in the wet, the tyres funnel away 250 litres of water every second – enough to fill a large bath.